8 ms·

Seeing PG slowly turn on this issue, from nothing into recognition and now into advocacy has been wild. Presumably because he has kids, and like many parents yo

by dluan 1y ago

Seeing PG slowly turn on this issue, from nothing into recognition and now into advocacy has been wild. Presumably because he has kids, and like many parents you understand with your eyes first, and then your heart. PG wields some amount of power in SV, but YC and others are still inextricably tied to what's happening. Thiel was just in Israel with elad gil, rabois, alex karp, joe lonsdale. It's just too much to list. I guess my point is when does recognition turn into action.

endorphine 1y ago
Is he still vocal about it? Do you have any recent comments of his to share?
- sporkxrocket 1y ago
  He is, he regularly posts about it on X. I really admire his commitment to ethics. It says a lot that even for him, it must be difficult.
  - crimsoneer 1y ago
    Random sidenote, but Brits in SF tend to give me unexpected civic pride.
    - Fluorescence 1y ago
      Huh - I didn't know he was a West Country boy. Barely though, moving to the states at age 4, but I guess he came back a decade ago. Not sure it warrants national pride unless his parents raised him on a strict diet of tea, scones and the BBC. I hope he turns up at YC having gained his birthright, a nice Dorset burr, "alreet moi luvlees, wart ideals be goin on ere?" I had assumed moving to the UK was a Madonna-esque escape from getting pitched every 5 minutes while trying to do family stuff in SV.
  - _factor 1y ago
    My best friend since childhood is Jewish and has a difficult time even acknowledging there is an issue. My other friend works for an Israeli company and the jokes are about what they’re going to do with the flattened Gaza land. I’m not sure which is worse. In one case ignoring it and pretending your morality is in tact, on the other being crass but knowing full well no one will stop this until it’s too late (as planned). Do we really need a “Human Lives Matter” movement? Are our leaders space lizards? How much blackmail has the Israeli intelligence community accumulated? How much blackmail has it generated by clandestinely helping foreign politicians? There is a reason the world is silent, and it’s rotten.
    - closewith 1y ago
      I suppose the question is why do they remain your friends? What is the threshold at which you'd stop calling them that?
      - Chance-Device 1y ago
        Him cutting off his relationships won’t help anyone, nor change any minds. I understand the impulse, but everyone loses from that.
        DoctorOW 1y ago
        If they were going to change their mind, they likely would have already. If you're watching people starve to death, and defending it as normal politics, you don't care about others. You don't get out of harmful relationships for them, you do it for you.
        NomDePlum 1y ago
        If you find something morally reprehensible then staying friends is harmful to you surely?
      - barcoder 1y ago
        It is eye opening remaining friends with people who's views and actions are completely opposed to ones own. There's no point attempting to educate them (often it makes them go harder against you). But by finding out about their lives and understanding where fear has replaced love one can learn a lot. And hopefully use that knowledge to find ways to speak out and create a society that aligns with ones ethics.
jbstack 1y ago
For those of us not in the loop, what is PG, SV, and YC (I guess that the latter is ycombinator)?
- firtoz 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer) (YC Co-founder) Silicon Valley YCombinator yes
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
nakamoto_damacy 1y ago
I used to shame PG for his elitist views. Now I celebrate his moral courage. One man cannot fix everything. Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo), As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  > It's being abused. Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
  - j_maffe 1y ago
    Yes but it hides the comment for most users. This is of course besides the flagging abuse which outright delists websites.
  - close04 1y ago
    Downvoting moves the comment down the reply tree and greys it out making it harder to read. Flagging comments completely hides them from many users, especially when logged in. And flagging submissions sends them to oblivion. So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
- adastra22 1y ago
  Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.
  - nakamoto_damacy 1y ago
    Genocide is not complicated.
steeve 1y ago
Hard to put into words how those people act like the devil incarnate and a lot of the scene pretends that this doesn't matter.
- steeve 1y ago
  The downvote are actually proving my point
abc123abc123 1y ago
[flagged]
mikepurvis 1y ago
Thanks for the heads up on this. I've been a fan of PG's since reading the plan for spam essay in high school, and was a very early reddit user after he boosted it (join date Nov 2005). I have several friends who did YC at various points and was always a bit bummed that my career/life took a different direction and I didn't get the chance. Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.
velcrohn 1y ago
[flagged]
- sporkxrocket 1y ago
  Israel has been terrorizing and ethnically cleansing Palestinians since the inception of Zionism. Nakba was the original mass ethnic cleansing of Palestine. October 7th was a valid reaction to people violently stealing your land and killing your families. The Palestinians had even tried a peaceful March of Return only to have the IDF snipe over a thousand people. Israel is not a legitimate state, and never has been.
  - klipt 1y ago
    > October 7th was a valid reaction to people violently stealing your land and killing your families. Well the Arab states collectively stole land 5 times the size of Israel from the Mizrahi Jews they ethnically cleansed (who now make up a majority of Israeli Jews) So by your logic the Mizrahi Jews are entitled to enact October 7 style killings on the Arab states until they pay reparations for the land they stole.
    - sporkxrocket 1y ago
      This is false and never happened. Mizrahi Jews colonized Palestine under the banner of Zionism. Despite holding a lower social position in Israel than Ashkenazis, they are still colonizers.
      - klipt 1y ago
        You can't deny history, it's well documented that Mizrahi Jews hold the deeds to lands in Arab states adding up multiple times the size of Israel. If the Arab states think the Palestinians deserve reparations for stolen land, then obviously the Mizrahi Jews deserve multiples of those reparations. If the Arab states think they can avoid paying reparations for the land they stole just by taking Israel by force, well they tried that several times and failed already.
vitajex 1y ago
PG has written in public about this for over 20 years. See "I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet" in https://paulgraham.com/say.html https://paulgraham.com/say.html.

by dluan 1y ago

endorphine 1y ago

Is he still vocal about it? Do you have any recent comments of his to share?

sporkxrocket 1y ago
He is, he regularly posts about it on X. I really admire his commitment to ethics. It says a lot that even for him, it must be difficult.
- crimsoneer 1y ago
  Random sidenote, but Brits in SF tend to give me unexpected civic pride.
  - Fluorescence 1y ago
    Huh - I didn't know he was a West Country boy. Barely though, moving to the states at age 4, but I guess he came back a decade ago. Not sure it warrants national pride unless his parents raised him on a strict diet of tea, scones and the BBC. I hope he turns up at YC having gained his birthright, a nice Dorset burr, "alreet moi luvlees, wart ideals be goin on ere?" I had assumed moving to the UK was a Madonna-esque escape from getting pitched every 5 minutes while trying to do family stuff in SV.
- _factor 1y ago
  My best friend since childhood is Jewish and has a difficult time even acknowledging there is an issue. My other friend works for an Israeli company and the jokes are about what they’re going to do with the flattened Gaza land. I’m not sure which is worse. In one case ignoring it and pretending your morality is in tact, on the other being crass but knowing full well no one will stop this until it’s too late (as planned). Do we really need a “Human Lives Matter” movement? Are our leaders space lizards? How much blackmail has the Israeli intelligence community accumulated? How much blackmail has it generated by clandestinely helping foreign politicians? There is a reason the world is silent, and it’s rotten.
  - closewith 1y ago
    I suppose the question is why do they remain your friends? What is the threshold at which you'd stop calling them that?
    - Chance-Device 1y ago
      Him cutting off his relationships won’t help anyone, nor change any minds. I understand the impulse, but everyone loses from that.
      - DoctorOW 1y ago
        If they were going to change their mind, they likely would have already. If you're watching people starve to death, and defending it as normal politics, you don't care about others. You don't get out of harmful relationships for them, you do it for you.
      - NomDePlum 1y ago
        If you find something morally reprehensible then staying friends is harmful to you surely?
    - barcoder 1y ago
      It is eye opening remaining friends with people who's views and actions are completely opposed to ones own. There's no point attempting to educate them (often it makes them go harder against you). But by finding out about their lives and understanding where fear has replaced love one can learn a lot. And hopefully use that knowledge to find ways to speak out and create a society that aligns with ones ethics.

jbstack 1y ago

For those of us not in the loop, what is PG, SV, and YC (I guess that the latter is ycombinator)?

firtoz 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer) (YC Co-founder) Silicon Valley YCombinator yes
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

nakamoto_damacy 1y ago

I used to shame PG for his elitist views. Now I celebrate his moral courage. One man cannot fix everything. Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo), As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.

Aeolun 1y ago
> It's being abused. Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
- j_maffe 1y ago
  Yes but it hides the comment for most users. This is of course besides the flagging abuse which outright delists websites.
- close04 1y ago
  Downvoting moves the comment down the reply tree and greys it out making it harder to read. Flagging comments completely hides them from many users, especially when logged in. And flagging submissions sends them to oblivion. So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
adastra22 1y ago
Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.
- nakamoto_damacy 1y ago
  Genocide is not complicated.

steeve 1y ago

Hard to put into words how those people act like the devil incarnate and a lot of the scene pretends that this doesn't matter.

steeve 1y ago
The downvote are actually proving my point

abc123abc123 1y ago

[flagged]

mikepurvis 1y ago

Thanks for the heads up on this. I've been a fan of PG's since reading the plan for spam essay in high school, and was a very early reddit user after he boosted it (join date Nov 2005). I have several friends who did YC at various points and was always a bit bummed that my career/life took a different direction and I didn't get the chance. Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.

velcrohn 1y ago

[flagged]

sporkxrocket 1y ago
Israel has been terrorizing and ethnically cleansing Palestinians since the inception of Zionism. Nakba was the original mass ethnic cleansing of Palestine. October 7th was a valid reaction to people violently stealing your land and killing your families. The Palestinians had even tried a peaceful March of Return only to have the IDF snipe over a thousand people. Israel is not a legitimate state, and never has been.
- klipt 1y ago
  > October 7th was a valid reaction to people violently stealing your land and killing your families. Well the Arab states collectively stole land 5 times the size of Israel from the Mizrahi Jews they ethnically cleansed (who now make up a majority of Israeli Jews) So by your logic the Mizrahi Jews are entitled to enact October 7 style killings on the Arab states until they pay reparations for the land they stole.
  - sporkxrocket 1y ago
    This is false and never happened. Mizrahi Jews colonized Palestine under the banner of Zionism. Despite holding a lower social position in Israel than Ashkenazis, they are still colonizers.
    - klipt 1y ago
      You can't deny history, it's well documented that Mizrahi Jews hold the deeds to lands in Arab states adding up multiple times the size of Israel. If the Arab states think the Palestinians deserve reparations for stolen land, then obviously the Mizrahi Jews deserve multiples of those reparations. If the Arab states think they can avoid paying reparations for the land they stole just by taking Israel by force, well they tried that several times and failed already.

vitajex 1y ago

PG has written in public about this for over 20 years. See "I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet" in https://paulgraham.com/say.html https://paulgraham.com/say.html.